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Neuroscience and Philosophy
The Libet Experiments - Four Decades of Research on Free Will
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Beschreibung
In the early 1980s, the neuroscientist Benjamin Libet decided to make the philosophical claim that people have free will empirically testable. He instructed subjects to freely decide within the next minute or so to make a simple voluntary motor movement, like flexing their hand. He measured the exact time of the onset of muscular acitivity in order to determine the time of the movement (M). He also invented an ingenious device in order to measure the exact time when people first became consciously aware of their decision to execute the movement (W). Lastly, he used EEG to record the exact time of the onset of the Readiness Potential, a neural activity that precedes motor movements (RP).
The findings of Libet's experiments were as follows: RP preceeded M by about 550MS. That is, it apparently takes the brain about half a second to initiate a simple motor movement. However, W preceeded M by about only 200MS. W (the 'conscious will') thus occured only about a third of a second AFTER the brain had already begun to initiate the movement! For that reason, Libet's experiments and others along similar lines have ever since been said to show that "Free Will is an Illusion", that the conscious will simply comes too late for it to have any impact on what we do.
This, of course, has sparked some controversy. Part of the controversy is philosophical. Philosophers have, for example, questioned whether Libet's notion of free will is viable, whether it is the kind of free will worth caring about. Interestingly, however, part of the controversy is also empirical. There are lots and lots of methodological problems with Libet-style experiments that do not throw doubt on the philosophical interpretation of Libet's results, but on the viability of the results themselves.
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Ort: 35/E25
Zeiten: Mi. 10:00 - 12:00 (wöchentlich)
Erster Termin: Mittwoch, 03.04.2024 10:00 - 12:00, Ort: 35/E25
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar (Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen)
Studienbereiche
- Cognitive Science > Bachelor-Programm
- Cognitive Science > Master-Programm
- Human Sciences (e.g. Cognitive Science, Psychology)
Research Areas:
Algebraic geometry 14-XX
K-theory 19-XX
Algebraic topology 55-XX
Publications:
- Cellularity of hermitian K-theory and Witt-theory (with Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær)
- On the η-inverted sphere. K-Theory-Proceedings of the International Colloquium
- Gigantic random simplicial complexes Link (with Jens Grygierek, Martina Juhnke-Kubitzke, Matthias Reitzner and Tim Römer)
- On very effective hermitian K-theory Link (with Alexey Ananyevskiy and Paul Arne Østvær)
- The first stable homotopy groups of motivic spheres DOI (with Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær)
- Vanishing in stable motivic homotopy sheaves (with Kyle Ormsby and Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- The multiplicative structure on the graded slices of hermitian K-theory and Witt-theory (with Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- Slices of hermitian K–theory and Milnor's conjecture on quadratic forms (with Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- Calculus of functors and model categories, II (with Georg Biedermann) Link
- The Arone-Goodwillie spectral sequence for Σ∞Ωn and topological realization at odd primes (with Sebastian Buescher, Fabian Hebestreit und Manfred Stelzer) Link
- Motivic slices and coloured operads (with Javier Gutierrez, Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- Motivic strict ring models for K-theory (with Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær) PDF
- Theta characteristics and stable homotopy types of curves DOI
- A universality theorem for Voevodsky's algebraic cobordism spectrum (with Ivan Panin and Konstantin Pimenov) Link
- On the relation of Voevodsky's algebraic cobordism to Quillen's K-theory DOI (with Ivan Panin and Konstantin Pimenov)
- On Voevodsky's algebraic K-theory spectrum BGL (with Ivan Panin and Konstantin Pimenov)
- Rigidity in motivic homotopy theory DOI (with Paul Arne Østvær)
- Calculus of functors and model categories DOI (with Georg Biedermann and Boris Chorny)
- Motivic Homotopy Theory Link (with B.I.Dundas, M.Levine, P.A.Østvær and V.Voevodsky)
- Motives and modules over motivic cohomology Link (with Paul Arne Østvær)
- Modules over motivic cohomology DOI (with Paul Arne Østvær)
- Enriched functors and stable homotopy theory Link (with Bjørn Ian Dundas and Paul Arne Østvær)
- Motivic functors Link (with Bjørn Ian Dundas and Paul Arne Østvær)
Preprints and Talks:
Projekte
- DFG-Sachbeihilfe "Algebraic bordism spectra: Computations, filtrations, applications" (DFG-RSF-Antrag mit Alexey Ananyevskiy)
- DFG-Sachbeihilfe "Applying motivic filtrations" (mit Marc Levine und Markus Spitzweck) im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786
- DFG-Sachbeihilfe "Operads in algebraic geometry and their realizations" (mit Jens Hornbostel,
Markus Spitzweck und Manfred Stelzer) im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786 - DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Operad structures in motivic homotopy theory'' im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786 ``Homotopy theory and algebraic geometry'' (mit Markus Spitzweck)
- DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Motivic filtrations over Dedekind domains'' im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786 ``Homotopy theory and algebraic geometry'' (mit Marc Levine und Markus Spitzweck)
- DFG Graduiertenkolleg 1916 ``Combinatorial structures in geometry''
- DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Goodwillie towers, realizations, and En-structures''
- Graduiertenkolleg ``Combinatorial structures in algebra and topology'' (mit H. Brenner, W. Bruns, T. Römer und R. Vogt)
- DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Combinatorial structures in algebra and topology'' (mit H. Brenner, W. Bruns, T. Römer und R. Vogt)
Supervision
PhD
Philip Herrmann: Stable equivariant motivic homotopy theory and motivic Borel cohomology, 2012
Florian Strunk: On motivic spherical bundles, 2013
Master/Diplom
Markus Severitt: Motivic Homotopy Types of Projective Curves, 2006 PDF
Philip Herrmann: Ein Modell für die motivische Homotopiekategorie, 2009
Florian Strunk: Ein Modell für motivische Kohomologie, 2009
Sebastian Büscher: Anwendung der F2-kohomologischen Goodwillie-Spektralsequenz für iterierte Schleifenraeume, 2010
Fabian Hebestreit: On topological realization at odd primes, 2010
Katharina Lorenz: Darstellung unterschiedlicher mathematischer Rekonstruktionen von Größen, 2012
Jana Brickwedde: Fehlvorstellungen zum Grenzwertbegriff, 2015
Lena-Christin Müller: Penrose-Parkettierungen und ihre Eigenschaften, 2015
Larissa Bauland: Der Satz von Seifert-van Kampen und einige seiner Anwendungen, 2018
Nikolaus Krause: Eine algebraische Einfuehrung in die Milnor-Witt K-Theorie, 2019
Bachelor
Ein Spezialfall des letzten Satzes von Fermat, 2010
Transzendente Zahlen, 2010
Zur Gruppe des Rubik-Wuerfels, 2011
Einige Betrachtungen zum letzten Satz von Fermat, 2012
Die Involution auf algebraischer K-Theorie, 2012
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Platonische und Archimedische Körper, 2012
Klassifikation regulärer Polyeder, 2013
Grundbegriffe der Trigonometrie und ihrer Umsetzung in der gymnasialen Sekundarstufe I, 2014
Die Riemann’sche Zetafunktion und der Primzahlsatz, 2014
Konstruktion der klassischen Zahlbereiche, 2014
Eigenschaften und spezielle Werte der Riemann'schen Zetafunktion, 2015
Das quadratische Reziprozitätsgesetz und dessen Bedeutung in der Kryptographie, 2015
Graphen färben, 2015
Klassifikation und Visualisierung von Koniken, 2016
Konstruktion von Polygonen mit einem einzigen Schnitt, 2016
Parkettierungen der Ebene durch kongruente konvexe Fuenfecke, 2019
Die klassischen Hopf-Faserbuendel und einige ihrer Eigenschaften, 2019
Einige Anmerkungen mathematischer und historischer Natur zu Fermats Letztem Satz, 2019
